


The First Wave

by MrProphet



Category: The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells, X-COM: Enemy Unknown
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 22:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1404415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>X-COM is the property of Firaxis Games. War of the Worlds was written by HG Wells.</p><p>I was amused by the idea of a Victorian set X-COM in which the 'player' is effectively shouting orders from a stepladder instead of via radio. The result of that thought process is this.</p></blockquote>





	The First Wave

The Land Ranger rattled and clanked its way into position at the edge of Horsell Common and shuddered to a halt. With a savage clanging of metal, the forward ramp dropped into place and a group of soldiers emerged. Three riflemen formed a defensive ring, while a fourth soldier pushed a lightweight maxim gun into position alongside them. Two more men, one carrying a long rifle, the other a shotgun, moved up to the ridge of the crater and lay in the dirt, looking over.

The crater was longer than it was wide, and scattered with dugouts and piles of sandbags. Helmets and uniform caps could be seen in these strongpoints, but there was no movement save the occasional waving of cloth in the breeze.

The Land Ranger rattled again and, slowly, a scaffold concertinaed from the back of the vehicle. Once it had reached its full height, an officer in dress uniform ascended to the platform at its apex and took up a bullhorn.

“Now hear this!” he boomed. “Her Majesty’s Exigent Corps of Marines is now in control of this operation. All regular army personnel are to fall back to the edge of the Common.”

When there was no movement, he added: “Now!” and after a few moments went on: “Standish; move in on the nearest position and report!”

Standish, the soldier with the shotgun, vaulted over the side of the crater and slithered down the side, almost losing his balance and tumbling headlong into the dugout at the bottom. He cried out in horror and called back: “Ashes, sir! Nothing but burned bones and ashes! And the sandbags… they’re full of glass.”

The commander frowned. “Sergeant Bones, take position to the east!”

With a grunt of effort, the Gatling gunner lifted the end of the carriage and wheeled the weapon around along the eastern edge of the crater.

“Sebastian, Carter; put yourselves in the far dugouts, at the double! Riggs! The company command post! Corporal Grey, stand ready!”

The three riflemen slipped and slithered down the crater sides, the sharpshooter holding position with his long rifle.

“Report!”

“Same thing here!” Riggs’ voice was shaking; the Commander would not have expected that from a veteran of the Boer War, however terrible the sight and smell of burned flesh. “No… No sign of a log or any dispatches; just ash!”

“Something is moving in the craft!” Carter warned.

“Stand by, Exigence!” the Commander snapped, and the men readied their weapons.

Slowly, a great hood of metal rose above the vast cylinder of the alien ‘vessel’, suspended on a sinuous cable that swayed like a serpent. The hood covered a deep funnel, and it swung back and forth as if regarding the soldiers before focusing on the command post.

“Riggs! Down!” the Commander ordered, and as the rifleman flung himself into the dirt, the air rippled as an invisible heat ray flashed across the ground, raising smoke and steam. Riggs began to scream.

“Bones! Mortar!” 

The sergeant unslung his small mortar and set it up, then dropped in the shell. With a soft pop, the shell arced out and up, before dropping onto the back of the cylinder with a roar. The hood swung drunkenly towards Bones, but the other riflemen followed the mortar bomb with grenades, cracking open the cylinder’s silver-grey shell.

The hood slumped as the creature revealed within turned and laboured heavily away from the breach, but Grey’s rifle cracked and the leathery body collapsed.

For a moment there was silence, and then a desperate, plaintive cry rose from the crippled cylinder.

“Uuuu-laaa!”

And in the distance, another, angry voice answered in kind.

**Author's Note:**

> X-COM is the property of Firaxis Games. War of the Worlds was written by HG Wells.
> 
> I was amused by the idea of a Victorian set X-COM in which the 'player' is effectively shouting orders from a stepladder instead of via radio. The result of that thought process is this.


End file.
